


The Awakening

by TheEvangelion



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BDSM, Dom Cat Grant, Dom Lena Luthor, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Protective Lena Luthor, Smut, Sub Kara Danvers, Sub Leslie Willis, Sub Livewire, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14126706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvangelion/pseuds/TheEvangelion
Summary: Kara is a submissive with a broken understanding of her place within this world after surviving the destruction of her own. The only way Cat Grant can attempt to help her newest ward build a meaningful life here on earth, is to place her with her best friend Lena Luthor: the troubled last-surviving member of the powerful Luthor family.Cat can't help but think that being around a female dominant will help a skittish Kara settle in this world and come to understand that she is allowed to have wants and desires of her own. Cat also can't help but think that being around a submissive again is the only thing that just might stop a grieving Lena Luthor from falling off the deep-end completely.In her deepest thoughts, Cat knows they will not save each other. But maybe, just maybe, knowing one another will allow them to save themselves.





	1. Chapter 1

The Old Luthor place was the grandest home in all of Aston county. 

It sat lofty and proud on top of the hill overlooking the small middle-class town of Smallville. A stately reminder of those lavish years right before the Great Depression hit—with a sculpted garden and private tennis court to boot. It was when President Woodrow Wilson commissioned the plans for his post-presidential home that your great-grandfather hired the very same architect and demanded a design for something grander, something regal, something that borrowed the beauty of a French chateau and the imposing stature of an old English gatehouse.

Old Luthor was the epicentre of the entire world, at least that’s what you thought when you were small; back when you were barely be able to see over the dining room table at the all sorts of fancy guests who came to eat dinner with your grandfather and talk about boring grown up things. 

When your grandfather died and your father became head of the table, the guests who came for dinner became entirely less fancy and all the more interesting.

The guests were no longer investors, no longer frail dusty senators who smelled of boiled ham, or even the old-timey actresses married to important, old, wealthy dominants—though they were never too bad for company because they usually sneaked candies from their purse and squeezed them into the palm of your hand before dinner. The old actresses never grew tired of telling you stories about the pictures they had been in while the old men talked about boring old man things like baseball, or suppressing women’s rights. Whichever took their fancy before dinner.

When Dad began his reign of Old Luthor it was out with the old and in with the new. There were all sorts of people who came through the doors: designers from Europe who brought their fantastic bright colourful outfits for you to see. Authors and playwrights who told you all sorts of stories—none of which involved Joan Crawford stealing parts. Professors, educators, wordly people who had all sorts of ideas of what submissives were allowed to be in the world, how dominant-submissive dynamics should be reflected in society, that it was not shameful if some girls were dominants and some boys were submissives because science did not care for the delicate sensibilities of a society too stuck in the past.

Oh, you liked those opinionated people a lot.

Those people made you feel like your own skin was home sweet home. They made you feel like you weren’t defective, unfortunate, or a _mistake_. It was opinions like that which would have had your grandfather rolling in his grave at the thought of his nine-year-old granddaughter with the faint but undeniable birthmark of a dominant getting far too comfortable with her existence.

Unlike your grandfather, your father was a good man. He had hands like shovels, and no matter how much you grew they were always big enough to scoop you up for a hug. Always strong enough to comfortably bare the weight of your very peculiar difference from other girls. He never cared that you were different, he made sure you knew he was proud, that you were his little girl and the fact you would grow to become a dominant didn’t change that.

What wonderful times they were.

But, Old Luthor is your burden to bear now. Your kingdom. Your table. Your seat. Your home. These days it existed in undisturbed peace with its ostentatious gardens and fixtures tended by a skeleton crew of staff that no one in town particularly knew well enough to exchange anything more than pleasantries with.

You prefer it that way after the things that have happened.

There was a time when the people down in the town beneath knew your family well. _Too well._ A time when nearly every family within a mile radius converged on the Luthor Estate for one of your father’s famous charity cookouts. Though you never admit it, the memories of those days when all the neighbourhood families came and broke bread with your own always left you with a fond feeling in the pit of your stomach and an aching gnaw in your chest.

You try not to remember those things though, it’s better to not yearn for times long since passed.

These days, locked away in your ivory tower, you look out onto the world and its tiny inhabitants through crystalline windows that are high enough to see over the walls that surrounded the estate. This was the prison where you kept yourself now, working on your best days and dying on your worst. Still, there are much worse prisons to decay in. You tell yourself that in the moments you questioned your self-imposed exile from reality. The high garden walls that surround the estate are far away enough not to strangle you or the staff with proximity, but close enough to give you solitude, a comforting feeling of safety over your existence.

Today you cling to that comfort as you peer out of the window.

There is a sudden knock to the door of your study. It disturbs the purposeful silence, and that irks you enough to earn a little sigh.

“Come in,” you order the footman with a measured displeased tone.

The door creaks open and Layton appears from behind it. Layton was one of the loyal few who remained after your family… left. The other staff eventually dribbled away to more prosperous estates, places where the curtains were always drawn back and the pitter-patter of children were a more plentiful sound. You should be grateful, you suppose more often than not. Though it’s a great difficulty to find anything to be grateful for in this world anymore.

Still, as constant as the moon orbits the earth, Layton stays within the gravitational pull of this old house. You’re certain him and the creaking hallways share the same heartbeat. After all, it’s partly his constance here that keeps the place alive. His large cumbersome hands polishing the bannisters and his worn out knees knocking together on top of the rickety ladder while he dusts the chandeliers. Perhaps you would have sold this place long ago if it wasn’t for Layton and his wife. You’re certain letting go of this place would kill the old man. It’s his home as much as it’s yours.

“Ma'am, are you busy right now?” He asks, reluctantly.

You force a tight uncomfortable smile, trying to think of something to say you’re busy with to shut-down whatever reason it is that Layton has came to disturb you.

He pulls a funny expression after a minute, “Does silence mean busy?”

“Layton I’m always busy you know that,” you say a little too standoffish and sigh, scratching your head and still stumped.

There was a time when your voice was a delicate noise that strained the ear. It was all the more beautiful because of that, always soft and just beneath the enormous rapture of whatever else was going on so that those who listened had no choice but to tune in to every word you said. They hung off of it. They burrowed into the sound of your soft voice until the cacophony of everything else simmered into silence. Dad said it would always be one of your greatest assets when it was your turn to lead, the fact that your voice was always capable of commanding a room without being overbearing. Your voice is not delicate anymore, barely even cordial most of the time. Then again how could it be with the pain and unfinished business it has been forged in?

“Sorry if I snapped,” you apologise.

Layton just nods and mumbles.

“Can you hurry up and get to whatever it is you wanted?”

“Miss Grant is downstairs, Miss Luthor. Says she's not leaving this time until you see her,” Layton hesitantly replied.

He wanders further into the study and then simply waits; waiting for some sign of movement from you, waiting for some sign of acknowledgement, waiting for you to finish grinding your jaw in frustration, but silence is all you offered.

“Should I send her in?” He spoke again.

“Well you've already decided that for me given that I explicitly told you to never disturb me unless _absolutely_ necessary.”

Layton looks down at his shoes uncomfortably.

You immediately feel guilty as sin.

“I’m sorry.” You catch yourself and sigh, “I don’t mean to be rude and yet here I am being awful to you. But it _really_ is such a simple tiny request, Layton,” you complain.

“I can send her away if you like?”

“Yes. Please do…” 

Before you can finish the sentence the sound of Cat Grant’s pointed laughter grates the ear. The door to your study swings open a little wider and Layton is no match to hold her at bay. You watch her bluster right past him without so much as displacing her hair. It’s one of the things you resentfully like about Cat the most: the incomparable way she gets what she wants, goes where she wants, and does what she wants, with absolute reckless abandon.

“Well Lena, don't you know how to break a girl's heart?” She pulled her thin lips into an exaggerated frown and you grind your jaw in frustration. “You know it’s been six weeks since you bothered to call, right?” She raises a disapproving brow, “I’m not leaving until we’ve sat down and had a real, actual, productive conversation.” Cat turned over her shoulder, “Layton would you please fix lunch? I’ll take a martini—dry and without the olive, thank you.”

“Yes Ma’am! I’ll be back in a lick,” Layton began the eager shuffle for the door.

“No, Layton!” You exasperate, and his excited expression that someone has  finally came to share your company turns into crestfallen. “Cat won’t be staying for lunch,” you tell him sternly and offer a tight cordial smile in her direction.

“We’ll see about that,” Cat murmured and rolled her eyes.

Cat was a lathe of a woman, perhaps not even a clean five foot or a hundred pounds soaking wet. Despite her gentle oval green eyes, despite her softly coiffed dark blonde hair, despite all that outward meekness; she was a force to be reckoned with. Formidable. Aggressive. Always unafraid, especially when it came to you.

“I didn’t come to just stand here and model these pants for you, you know?” Cat warns with a stare.

“I suppose you better sit down then.”

“Did that really kill you to say?”

Your teeth become tight against one another. “Of course not,” you lie, gesturing to the chair in front of your desk. You turn and glare at Layton, infuriated that Cat Grant managed to find her way in here to disturb what was an otherwise perfectly bearable day. “We’ll be okay here if you have other things to do,” you tell him.

“I’ll be around if you need me,” Layton replied, offering you a brief apologetic look before closing the door behind himself.

Cat sits herself in front of you, arms crossed around her slender chest while she slowly leaned into the back of the chair. She hadn’t even sat down properly and paperwork was already placed neatly in front of you on the mahogany desk. Cat already had that look in her face. That particularly stern green-eyed stare she does when she wants something from you. In another life, when you were both younger, Cat used to give you that look from across the opposite side of a boardroom table during negotiation meetings between your rival family companies. 

But, Cat gave that life up a long time ago.

Charitable work and non-profit start-ups were the order of the day for her now. It shocked no one more than you when the news broke that Cat Grant, the only child of Ulysses S. Grant III, had broke up the family’s private business holdings in order to pursue philanthropy. You totally get it now though, if anyone makes campaigning for submissive rights look badass, it’s Cat Grant.

“I’m glad to see you’re looking better,” Cat begins and you raise your hand to silence her.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Okay, you look awful.”

“Better.”

“Well I do have to admit the yesterday’s ponytail and alma mater sweater thing you have going on doesn’t look all that terrible,” Cat says, looking you up and down.

“I know you didn’t come all the way out here for club sandwiches and small talk so let’s just cut the crap. How big of a donation do you need?” You already start digging through the desk drawer for your chequebook and fountain pen. “Are you raising money for a new hospital or a scholarship programme this time?” You lick the end of your pen and slip the reading glasses over the bridge of your nose.

“Astute as ever Lena but no nothing like that,” she sighs and taps the paperwork she placed in front of you.

Something is different today, she looks slightly apprehensive. 

“I have a much bigger request this time,” the truth finally begins to find its way out of her slick mouth. “I know it's short notice and I know you don't like to be disturbed up here in your…” Cat looks around the room and gestures with her hand as if she can’t find the right word. She sighs, “I would call it a home but honestly the fact you refuse to get rid of your grandfather’s decor makes it look like an Illuminati meeting house.”

“You’re really not getting off on a good start today are you, Champ?”

“I wouldn't come to you if I had any other option.”

You roll your eyes at that, “I don't know how many more of your big requests I can take, Cat. I’m not writing a cheque to build another public library, let’s put it that way…” 

You wince at the memory of the press practically climbing over each other to ask you questions about your personal life that you didn't care to answer. Children with their sticky disgusting hands reaching out for handshakes. Cat breathing down your neck every five minutes to smile and pretend you're having a good time. Leslie shooting you the thumbs up every time you looked at her as if you were the unpopular kid with an eczema outbreak at a pool party and she was your mom willing you to just fit in for once.

You’re definitely not doing that again.

Cat's eyes narrow and her nose shrivels up into that precarious look of disgust that is quintessentially her. You close your eyes, bracing for the oncoming verbal storm.

“That was your library opening!” She started, “It literally had your name on the side of the building in huge fuck off letters!”

“Whose stupid idea was it to even put my name on the side of that library?” You groan and sank into the chair, cradling your headache with both hands.

“Yours.”

“I don’t remember that,” you say defensively.

“Well it was.”

“I care to disagree.”

"It was your stupid idea! Something about your dear old dad’s legacy; something about the good Luthor name. I don’t know it was all pretty boring if we’re being completely honest,” Cat chides, wrinkling her navy blouse beneath her crossed arms once again. “Look, for the sake of brevity I'm just going to cut to the point.”

“Praise be.”

Cat ignores the comment, “In this folder,” she taps the paperwork again, “Is a case I'm working on concerning a submissive who needs a safe place to live.”

Wherever this is going, you do not like the sound of it one bit.

“You’re Catherine Jane Grant. Why would you personally be working on a case to home a submissive?” Your eyebrows pique.

“She’s a special one.”

“How so?”

Cat leaned across the table and hesitated for a moment, looking you and down with a tight smile. “She’s an alien, Lena.” The sentence makes you do a double take, never losing her eyes for a single moment. “ One of the few from a humanoid world with a similar society to our own, her planet was called Krypton if you’ve ever heard of it?”

“ _Was_ called Krypton?”

“She’s the last submissive left, everyone else died.”

“Wow.” You rub the back of your neck and still don’t fully understand why it is Cat is coming to you with this problem, “Forgive me if I’m being short sighted, Cat, but how do I fit into the equation here?” You ask with a curious look.

“The girl is troubled,” Cat says that word carefully. “The Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs doesn’t know what to do with her now that they’ve decided she isn’t here to destroy Planet Earth. The Republicans would have a field day if the government started spending tax dollars on the welfare of an alien submissive. So, no help there. I couldn’t get her into a female-only living facility for submissives because the waiting list is just too long but I did get her a spot at a mixed-gender facility.”

“And?” You ask, still confused.

“The girl is completely terrified of dominants!” Cat exasperates. “She attacks all the male residents whenever they’re within farting distance of her which is hard for them to handle given that she has…abilities.”

“And?” You prod further, waiting for the second shoe.

“It’s bad because she can’t stay at the facility any longer. It’s bad because I can’t get her a place in a female-only shelter. It’s bad because she deserves somebody to fight for her. It’s bad because she watched her whole world burn and there is no one left to love her. It’s bad because if you saw this girl…” Cat rubbed her forehead and lost her words. “She really needs to see what a healthy dominant-submissive dynamic looks like. She needs a female dominant around who can show her she’s not supposed to just be an object to please men.”

You sense where this is going.

You want no part of it.

“Cat I'm still not sure how this has anything to do with me?” You say bluntly, defensively even.

“Well, Layton and Mrs P are getting old. They need help keeping this old place in shape for when the world as we know it ends and the Illuminati rises, and she needs some time to be somewhere quiet and out of the way where she won’t be bothered. Somewhere she can see for herself that not all dominants are Fifty Shades of Psycho.”

“Don’t you dare ask me what you’re about to ask me,” you warn with tight knuckles on the lip of the desk.

“I’m asking, Lena.”

“I can’t believe you!” You hiss, clenching your fists so tight that half-crescent moons are dug into each palm. “How can you even ask me to let her stay here? After what I have been through?” You rapidly blink in disbelief.

“What choice do I have?” Cat says with exasperation.

You're so furious saliva turns to gasoline inside your mouth and it has you nearly gagging. There is still a picture that hangs on the far wall of Sam tucked underneath your chin, she is grinning in the photo with her dark hair forever caught in a gust of wind along a Parisian side street. You feel that old version of yourself stare back through the frame, grinning at you, mocking you, reminding you how happy you once were when you had Samantha. 

How happy you could never possibly be again. 

Sam stares at you too. You imagine her half repulsed, half disgusted that you would allow someone to desecrate her memory like this with suggestions that a submissive come live in the home you once shared together.

You know the last part is your over-active imagination because the aching, sore, and painful truth of the matter is that your Sam would be thrilled at the prospect of you not being alone in this drafty old house anymore.

She would tell you as much too.

If she wasn’t dead.

“Don’t be like them,” Cat interrupts your private thoughts, “Don’t send this girl away without giving her a chance at a life?”

“You take her home if you want to keep her safe so badly!” You snap.

“Oh, I'm sure Leslie would be thrilled about that. I had the unfortunate luck of finding a submissive who is undoubtedly capable of killing me and making it look like a tragic accident if I misbehave,” Cat raised a hand and closed her eyes at the thought. Her tightly-wound expression dissolved, eventually she blinked her eyes open again. "Look,” Cat sighed, “You are the only other female dominant I know who lives alone with the surplus space and maybe the need for an extra set of hands around the house, and I am out of options. I know if you met this girl you would like her because she’s quiet and keeps to herself for a start. But most importantly, when I pulled the strings and got you out of that crazy farm before your business reputation could be tarnished I told you that you would owe me a favour one day. The chickens have came home to roost, Lena.”

“No. You can’t just do that to me, can’t just drop that on me.” You shake your head and don’t know what to say. You always knew you would owe her a big favour one of these days, a favour that would no doubt be dragged out of you unwillingly. You just never imagined it would be something like this. "Thank you for stopping by but I think our meeting is over," you say matter of factly.

“You need to learn to be around people again, Lena.” Her eyes never lose you, they see through your facade expertly and you feel violently exposed.

“Excuse me?”

“You need someone around,” Cat repeats a little more firmly. “Maybe just for the sake of not forgetting what it’s like to have other people breathing around you? I have a girl who needs someone who can appreciate her predicament. She’s adjusting. She’s trying to get on her feet. She deserves a chance… and if it doesn't work out? Well. I will take a Mulligan,” Cat finally pauses for breath and pushes the dossier back beneath your nose. 

“Her name is Kara,” Cat says gently, offering a little smile.

Scratched becomes the skin of your palms where you have dug your crimson nails into the flesh and muscle too hard. Breathing is a jagged, staggered, manual affair. You angrily shove the paperwork back towards her, seething on the thought of a stranger, an outsider, an _alien_ in your home. 

“I’ll let you see yourself out, Cat.”

***

“What did you say to her?”

“What could I say? I told her to see herself out!” You answer a shocked but not all that surprised Leslie, staring into the FaceTime camera on the computer screen with a furious look.

“Rather you than me.” Leslie just shrugged and took a bite from the apple in her hand.

Leslie isn’t quite a friend, maybe something between a friend and a familiar face at life’s bus stop that you often commiserate with, especially if the thing to commiserate over is Cat Grant. Admittedly, you find it hard to be warm with new people, which normally scares new people off immediately. Leslie isn’t like most people though, she is coarse and unconcerned with being the picture of a perfect submissive. She says what she thinks, always, and she never cares about what any dominant makes of it—least of all her own. It makes for a refreshing change.

Still, she’s not _quite_ a friend.

She’s just Leslie.

“Where does she get off asking me to let an alien with _superpowers_ live here?” You shake your head and sigh, pushing reading glasses up the bridge of your nose. For a split second you catch a glance in the monitor and you nearly do a double take at just how worn out you’re looking. You look like a woman in her late thirties, maybe a good ten years older than your actual age. Your raven hair has lost its gloss. The dark circles makes your green eyes dull and tired. Your painfully thin wrists are swamped by an old watch that needs drastically resizing.

You almost pull your face taut before you remember someone else is watching.

“Do you have to get hung-up on the superpowers thing? Go to town over Cat asking you to let an alien move into your place though, by all means.” Leslie raised her hands and shrugged.

“Sorry Sparky.”

“Eh. No point getting indignant about it, right?”

“Speak for yourself. I’m feeling _really_ indignant right now.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Leslie sighed and craned her pitiful stare towards the camera.

“No! God no!” You snap quickly, “Cat never talked about me behind my back to Sam no matter how much I pissed her off. Or if she did Sam was _really_ good at keeping it a secret,” you mumble and then smile at the thought for a moment. It leaves as quickly as it came. “I shouldn’t complain about Cat to you of all people, but sometimes you just need to speak with someone who… gets it?”

“Oh believe me I get it.” Leslie nodded her head, “Miss Cat can be a real piece of work sometimes but you know, Luthor, as much as I hate to admit it she is usually right, with all things considered.”

“All things considered?”

“Well,” Leslie mused thoughtfully and pulled on one of corner of her mouth. “Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing having an indestructible woman around. Your whole deal is that everyone you love dies in the end, right?”

“Stop talking, Leslie.”

“Look Lena, first female of your name, breaker of chains, mother of lesbians; the world is waiting and watching for you to bounce back. I don’t know what your deal is. I don’t get why it is you lock yourself away all by yourself but it has serious supervillain-in-the-making vibes all over it. If I were you I would be considering the fact that Cat might actually be trying to save you from yourself.”

“You came up with the Game of Thrones thing before I called, didn’t you?”

“I have two hours before I head over to Cat’s office. So maybe.”

“Well thank you for the pep-talk Leslie but the girl isn’t living here.”

You watch Leslie lean back in her chair, she sighs a noise so loud it’s almost a wailing cat’s hiss. Her manicured fingers come up to each cheek and rub exasperatedly. “Stubborn like your-”

“Don’t say her name!” The snap explodes out of you from nowhere.

You look down and your hands tremble against the desk, the pain is so subtle and small most of the time, manageable even, like a small cut. It aches and aches, always, like the bittersweet pain of pressing a bruise. Eventually something presses it too hard and the pain becomes sharp and instant. The pain becomes so present that you lose yourself for a moment, drowning inside those ripped open scars.

“Lena?”

“Just,” you exhale a shake breath, training your stare towards your hands. “Sorry, give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”

“No need,” Leslie lifts a hand.

“Seriously it’s fine I just, I just need some air,” you say a bit too frantically.

“Look, Lena. Sweetheart. Doll. You need a lot more than a little air, you called me to talk and so I’m talking. Consider what Cat said, it might not be the worst thing in the world.”

“Fine, sure, whatever.”

“Come for dinner at our place?”

“I’ll think about it,” you lie.

“Good, think about it.”

You slam the lid of the laptop closed.

You feel your chest shudder.

There’s an inferno in your lungs. It blazes like an entire screaming world on fire. It burns and sets fire to everything until all you can do to contain the flames is douse yourself in memories that are reserved for the most intolerable moments of the day. 

 _Self soothing._  

That is what the overpaid shrink by Cat’s place calls it. What a ridiculous fucking notion because _nothing_ soothes these wounds. Nothing makes the hurt stop. Nothing rights this wrong.

_Self soothing._

The thought nearly makes you laugh bitterly. If anything, remembering the ones you have lost is your most elaborate form of self-harm. But god, it hurts so good allowing yourself the memories of what it felt like to wander into this study when it belonged to your father. The way he would push his glasses up his nose and pop his back against the seat—even though your step-mom told him never to do that because he would get arthritis and there was no way she was spending her golden years next to a stooped old man. He did it anyway, smiling that dad-ish smile, because he knew you wouldn’t get him in trouble. 

He was never too busy to show you whatever he was working on, never too busy to pull you up a chair and explain in eye-wateringly boring detail whatever report he was musing over. You never listened, and maybe that’s your biggest regret, you should have listened more. You should have memorised the particular way he filed the orders of the day. Should have learned the reasons why his locked top drawer that was supposedly for the most absolute private and important business–was actually filled with unimportant bits and pieces: a wonky coffee mug you once made him for father’s day, a scrawled out shopping list your mother once wrote, a receipt and two ticket stubs for a cinema showing of Edward Scissorhands. 

After you finally found the key and saw what was inside you locked the drawer up again. You kept all the lost pieces of life once-in-bloom right there in that drawer as if you might walk in here one morning and your dad would be sat right at his desk. In the dream, he would tell you to pull up beside him and with his huge dad hands he’d pull each thing out and explain in eye-wateringly boring detail why it was all so crucial.

“Maybe you were just a hoarder?” You sigh quietly towards the ceiling and ghost over the lock on the drawer. “It really would have been easier if you were having an affair or you were into weird sex and that was where you kept the evidence. I could have dealt with that. But a grocery list from 1984? What the hell am I supposed to do with that Dad?”

“...Speaking of grocery lists, Miss Luthor.”

“Jesus Christ! Layton!” You hiss and jump out of your skin as he dodders through the half-open door. He looks apologetic at first. It’s insincere you realise because he must have been listening in the hallway the whole time. You know he does that. Listens. Places himself conveniently nearby to be of assistance if ever you’re close to another breakdown.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Miss Luthor,” he assures you softly and steps closer. “I was just polishing over there,” he pointed off towards the first-storey landing, “and I remembered I have to head into town in the morning and grab groceries. Should I get anything in particular?”

“The usual, I’m hardly expecting company.”

“Oh?” He raised a surprised brow.

“I take it you were also conveniently polishing on the landing when Cat was here?”

“Perhaps.” He shrugs and adjusts himself. You watch him lick his lips for a moment and look for the right words. “May I join you, Miss Lena?”

“Please. Everybody else seems to want my company today, why not you too?” You force an exasperated smile.

His hips are so old that by the time he sits down and gets comfortable you’ve already poured two handles from the good whiskey decanter and positioned them on the desk. He smiles underneath his moustache and pushes his forward back towards you just like you knew he would, and it’s fine because that means there’s now a decent excuse for you to have two.

“Do you mind?” He asks gently and nods towards the ornaments on the desk. 

Before you can respond he’s already re-ordering them, dusting them with his sleeves and putting them just the way they used to be. Quietly grateful as you are for the small act, you say nothing. 

“You know, I was just a boy when I first came up to work at the big house?”

“You? Young?” You tease him, drinking a short swig of whiskey.

Layton laughs and it turns into a heaving cough, the handkerchief comes up to his mouth and he steadies himself with a sigh. “So young First was still around and Second was still married to your grandmother.”

First was your great-grandfather, Second your grandfather. Third, Dad. Fourth, you. You hate the numbers. The way people use them as nicknames to refer to which age of Luthor leadership they were referring to. The thought of one day ending up a number in someone’s mouth terrifies you.

You pull a funny expression. “Layton...”

“I know I know, no ordinal numbers,” he waves it off and his quickness relaxes you ever so slightly, you offer a brief nod in return. “What I mean to say is that I’ve been around a long time. I know this lady,” he patted his hand against the oak-clad wall. “I know the way she thinks, the way she can kick up a real mean stink. I know the way she needs to be taken care of even when everything _looks_ as if it’s fine but it really isn’t,” Layton exaggerates with an exhausted expression, shaking his head. 

You can’t help but notice he’s not looking at the walls anymore though, instead he’s looking right at you.

“You’re not saying you want to retire, right?” You ask with a nervous laugh.

“I’m an old man now, Lena,” Layton lifts his weathered pale hands, calloused and varicose along the backs. “Me and Mrs P? This place used to have a dozen folk downstairs keeping her running and now there’s just us two. It’s a lot of work.”

“But you’re…you’re not leaving, right? You’re not going to go are you?” Your voice wavers with urgency.

This **cannot** be happening. 

You can’t lose them too. 

You can’t be in this place all alone. 

It’s out of the question but you realise too suddenly it’s going to happen eventually, one day they will retire and you will be the last one left. The thought of being completely alone is too much. You feel your heart punch your ribcage and Layton’s voice becomes a garbled far away noise as if you’re drowning and can’t pull yourself out. 

Slowly, you swallow and count in your head and center yourself just like that overpaid shrink preaches at you to do:

  1. _Sam’s smile._ Her beaming wide-eyed smile, the particular one she did when you were chasing after her down the stairs and she peered over her shoulder to see how far away you were with fly-away brunette hairs caught in her face, golden freckles illuminated by the afternoon sun like they were newborn stars resting on her tan cheeks. You remember and grieve simultaneously, it isn’t enough, but it keeps you hanging on.
  2. _Dad cheating at card games._ You would watch him across the room, and it didn’t matter if he was playing with Layton or the foremost world expert in Rummy, you always knew he would win because his eyes fixed on the particular dog-eared corners of his opponents cards. That always made you laugh for some reason, his competitiveness. You remember and grieve simultaneously, it isn’t enough, but it keeps you hanging on.
  3. _Ma’s hands._ The particular lines on your stepmother’s hands and the way they smelled of brown sugar, always. You remember and grieve simultaneously, it isn’t enough, but it keeps you hanging on.
  4. _The taste of Sam’s kiss._ It can’t be put into words, only fondly and achingly remembered. The ones in the evening were your favourite, when you were stuck on the sofa with your nose in your laptop figuring out polymers and nanotech or whatever else was required of you, and she would jump over the back and land between your thighs, closing the laptop so she could be the only thing your nose was mindlessly buried into. You remember and grieve simultaneously. It isn’t enough but it’s easier to breathe now. You can breathe. You can nod and swallow and gather yourself.
  5. _Their funerals._ That slow limping walk behind the coffins. How you dragged yourself behind Sam’s the entire way to the pulpit with the weight of a collapsing universe resting on your thin shoulders, if only because you promised Sam when she was alive that one day you would both walk down a church aisle together and step outside with your heart in her chest and hers in yours. Funny how life enjoys playing cruel tricks on us like that, because when you stepped outside into the drizzling rain, you felt a small burning ember inside your otherwise hollow ribs and knew well that she kept your tender heart as a keepsake and gave you the final beat of her own. She lived, and she died, and it hurts, but you’re still here.



You remember and grieve for them all  simultaneously. It isn’t enough, but you swallow the truth of their deaths like gasoline and force yourself not to gag. You breathe and blink, dragging yourself out of the abyss until Layton’s worried voice is clear as day.

“Lena come on girl! Talk to me! Talk to me Fourth?!” His weathered hand grab and jolt you back to life. “Dear, oh my, I’m so sorry,” he squeezes your hand so tight. “I was so worried, I thought you were having another episode, I thought,” his voice trailed into nothing, and you suddenly feel guilty for merely existing. “It was my fault for letting you think we would just leave you with this old girl to manage all by yourself, I’m sorry Miss Luthor,” he swallows.

“I’m alright it’s me who should apologise,” you say meekly, swallowing and shaking the feeling off. “I just, er, I don’t know what I would do without you. I don’t think I say that enough, do I?”

“Probably not but then again I would be entirely lost without you too,” Layton pats your hand gently.

“Careful, wouldn’t want Mrs P to hear you talking like that.”

“Her good ear is on the way out, I doubt she’d hear.”

“Still, why risk it?” Your hand is tentatively drawn back into the comfort of your personal space with a small awkward smile. There’s a pause for a moment, brows furrowed and lips poised, you say it as nonchalantly as you can manage, “You know if you’re thinking of retiring this will always be your home for as long as you want right? You know you can always just...stay?”

“I hope it’s not too improper to say but I plan on staying on this estate until the day I die,” Layton nods and stares right at you as if you’re the only thing in the world that matters to him, “After all, I _promised_ your father I would always take care of her.” 

That doddering soft old man really has a way of clenching your heart sometimes.

“But,” Layton continues with a wiggle of his moustache, “I’m an old man now… you and this house will long outlive me and I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world _thinking_ about making a new hire? If you see fit of course, Miss Luthor.”

“Well, ideally not one from a strange planet called Krypton,” you sniff and put it to rest.

“My mother was a traveller.”

“A traveller?” You never lose his eyes.

“From the stars,” he smiles softly. “She was born on a planet called Siren 1B, where the water was gold and the clouds rang like church bells, she always said.”

“Your mother was an alien?”

“A refugee,” Layton says defensively. “If it wasn’t for your great-grandfather, god rest his soul,” Layton briefly touches a cross over his head and chest at the mere mention of First, “He paid the costs she owed the nuns and brought her to the main house to work. She probably would have died at the nunnery working off the bill the nuns dumped her with for the kindness of delivering me,” he shook his head at that with indignation and chewed on it for a moment. “Darn Catholics, if you’ll pardon my language, Miss Luthor,” his eyes dart back at you quickly.

“I think we can excuse your flagrant use of the word darn, Layton.”

“Will you?” Layton asks hopefully.

“Will I what?”

“Will you please consider it? Taking in the poor girl, I mean,” he looked down at his feet.

“Nope,” you tell him instantly without a lick of remorse. “We’ll make do for as long as we can and when the time comes to look for new people…” your voice trails off with a sigh, “Well. We’ll deal with the staffing situation when the time comes.”

“As you wish, Miss Luthor,” he says it with a hint of disappointment and a brief subservient nod, as if reminding himself of his place. 

After all, to ask such things of the head of the house is wildly inappropriate. You can’t be expected to be a charity for every poor unfortunate soul in the world. That’s what you tell yourself to try and hide from the guilt at least as he stands on wobbly legs and makes a beeline for the door.

You really can be a hard-faced bitch sometimes.

***

Sam comes to you in fleeting dreams and you wish to God she wouldn't. Tonight you see her across a golden hotel ballroom, it’s New Year's Eve and the party is in full-swing. She’s wearing the black off-the-shoulder dress she wore to Cat’s wedding, standing at the bar, contently staring at you with two glasses of champagne and a smile that’s enough to ruin your entire life just remembering the ghost of it.

“Hello lovely stranger,” she whispers in your ear as you fight the urge to collapse at her feet. “Miss me?”

“You're not real,” you whisper back, dying beneath the reserved.

“I know, I know,” she sighs with that light voice that still echoes around the corridors of your heart as if she’s inconvenienced by the truth of it, “But you don’t like me visiting you during the day anymore. I think the last time we spoke you said it left people asking questions?”

“It left people thinking I was insane, clinically speaking.”

“I believe the term was temporarily incapacitated,” Sam corrected with wry smile and a quirk of her dark brow. “I love that, don’t you? _Temporarily incapacitated._ It’s so generic, you could be having a mental breakdown or just be stuck in the bathroom, who knows?” Her eyes grow wide and playful.

You try not to smile but you just can’t help it. Even if it isn’t real, even if you’re going to wake up a sobbing mess chasing anti-anxiety meds with bourbon in less than ten minutes from now, it’s all worth it for just a moment of her. Just a split-second, even.

“I think everyone was clear on it being a mental breakdown, Sam. Yep. They were all pretty much _in the know,_ so to speak.”

“Since when did things like that stop us having fun?” She raised a brow and killed you with it, or at least it felt that way. “Dance with me?” She asked with excited eyes you never quite managed to unlearn.

Dutifully, without reservation, you take her in your arms and don’t dare to close your eyes for a single second in case the world around you crumples to ash and bone. The dance floor is an endless purple galaxy beneath your feet and your third grade teacher marks science projects in the corner of the ballroom. Sam doesn’t let you disappear into the abstract though, she slips her hands around the small of your open back, fingers latching into the bottom of your spine, she remains tethered to you right there as if it’s enough to follow you back to the world of the living.

“You look so beautiful,” you whisper and feel stupid.

“No,” she replies, spinning beneath your arm. “You were always the one people stared at, I mean, that butt?” Her hand briefly slips down and you slap her away with a scowl, looking around to make sure no one noticed before you realise it doesn’t matter. Sam just smirks and looks at you, “It was always you. A million times you, Lena,” she croons softly.

“Debatable,” you sigh and nuzzle into her bare shoulder. 

She still smells of that perfume, the one you couldn’t remember the name of. After the bottle ran out you kept the single pillowcase that still smells of it somewhere safe for the worst nights, just so you can feel a little closer to her.

“So, how are you doing?” She sways to music you can’t hear anymore.

“Good. I’m thinking of visiting that library I told you about last time, the one Cat talked me into—”

“The truth, Lena.”

You sigh at that, blinking and unsure of what to do with the boulder in your throat. Sam just smiles, looks you up and down and cups your cheeks until the truth is pulled right out of you with one masterful look.

“I know you’re just a projection. I know you’re just my mind protecting itself from the incomprehensibility of living without you. I know objectively there isn’t anything after death except a cold and vast infinite nothing. I know you’re not real, and, in all honesty? It’s still not enough to make me not want to throw the toaster in the bathtub in just the tiny speck of hope that I might find you again. Still, two years later. That’s what I go through _every_ morning.”

“Mrs P is very thorough,” Sam muses and holds you tighter, “she would notice the toaster was missing right away. And if you somehow miraculously did manage to kill yourself she would give you rescue breaths until you came back to life, just so she could tell you what a stupid fucking idea it was. You really didn’t think it through,” Sam laughed as you slapped her arm.

“I’m glad we’re doing this. Even if it’s just for a little while because I… I missed seeing you around, Sam,” you admit shamefully.

“The delusions? If that’s what we’re still calling them?”

“That’s what they were!” You warm her sternly, for your own benefit. 

You can’t fool yourself into believing the episodes were real anymore. You can’t fall down that rabbit hole. It hurts far more than the truth, and the truth is that she is just a collective of neurons in your brain that are even more stubborn and unwilling than you are when it comes to the art of letting her go.

“Fine, you’re right, you got me. I’m as real as an imaginary friend. Are you happy now?” Sam whispers back in concession.

It hurts, and though you’re anything but happy, you breathe easier for it.

“I won’t trick you again. I’m sorry I did that,” Sam says it firmly and you can see it in her face there’s something she is not saying.

“Do you think just for tonight,” you hesitate and look away, filled with embarrassment. “Do you think we could just pretend?” You ask as quietly as you can.

“Now wouldn’t that be something?”

“I could spend the rest of my life pretending with you, you know? Just as long as you don’t trick me into thinking it’s real anymore.” You whisper that bit, swallowing and desperate to cling on to her.

“I **won’t** trick you again,” Sam promises and draws her nose along yours.

You sob. You stand there and sob right into her for having the audacity to die and leave you alone. For having the fucking gall to only live for twenty six years when you would have dragged a hundred out of her if you could. It infuriates you, renders you completely livid and heartbroken. But then she moves forward, slowly, hands slipping either side of your neck until her lips graze yours and you feel that pull of sheer joy from deep down in your lungs that always seems to lead back to her.

“Why are you being so stubborn over the girl, Miss Lena? Cat needs the favour and the help would go a long way with Layton and Mrs P. You know that?”

“I…I just…”

“What?” Sam stares at you with those cornflower blue eyes.

“I don’t want someone in our home. Someone new, I mean.” You cradle your headache in both palms, “I don’t want someone messing up our things or touching your stuff.”

“Honey, we’ve talked about this.”

“No, don’t you dare say it!” You try to pull away from the grip she has on your wrist, “You said we could pretend!” 

“I’m not coming back.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m dead and I am not coming back, Lena.”

The room begins to shake beneath your wrath. Mrs Latimer awards your bicarbonate soda volcano first prize and the universe beneath your feet cracks open into swirling smears of light that devour the stars themselves. There are strawberries in your mouth incapable of being swallowed and you can’t remember how they got there.

“I’m not ready! I don’t want to go!” You shake your head like a child.

Sam just smiles and takes steps backwards, further away from your desperate outstretched hands.

“Love you, mean it.”

“Sam!” You scream her name as the dream collapses inwards.

You land with a jolt in bed, screaming and awake. The sweat pours from your body like you’re the earthy veins that rivers run through. Gasping and dying, you scream and scream until your voice is a horse whisper.

Eventually, bitter and violent as it is, you feel the iron cool in your lungs. It renders them entirely useless and incapable of screaming anymore. Your rib cage cracks around the lead weight in your chest until your body gives way to it, until all you can do proficiently is collapse and weep into the slow reluctant realisation that she’s gone, that she is just stardust and memories now.

You stay there for what feels like hours, curled in one spot of bed that used to belong to her. There is nothing left within you but a violent, unrestrained, consuming hatred that deepens the red rims of your eyes. You remember the dream and in all honesty you wish you didn’t, but a few things stick in your mind as you stare at a glasses case on the opposite side table and a dog-eared romance novel that hasn’t been moved in two years.

_It’s just stuff now._

_You have to let people in._

_You have to give the girl a chance._

_It’s the only way you’re going to get your own._

 

 


	2. Chapter II

Cat sits there with a gloating smile as you sign and sort the paperwork. She tried to temper it at first, poorly mind you. But then your pen squiggles a signature, signing away on the dotted lines, and she absolutely burns with that victorious grin. She cannot even begin to contain it.

“So you spoke to Sparky yesterday?” Cat says as you hesitate over the last signature required. “She told me she tried to talk some sense into you, tried at least.” She scratched her head.

“Leslie doesn’t like it when you call her Sparky, she might pretend to be unphased but it hurts her feelings. It’s different when I say it, she cares what you think.” You remind your friend with a disapproving frown, drawing a breath as you push back the finalised paperwork, an employment contract and a rent agreement. You sigh and think about your conversation with Leslie, “All she did was pretty much agree with me that this was a stupid idea, and then told me I’m stupid for letting you convince me otherwise. Then she spent a few minutes trying to crowbar offers for group dinner into the conversation until I gave up in the end.” You roll your eyes and pull a small exasperated smile.

“Leslie likes you. She has a thing for potential wannabe super-villains waiting for their good thing to work out and set them right, reminds her of the past.”

“Potential super-villain?” You become offended and snatch your hands back towards yourself. You try not to give too much away. Try not to let Cat see that the words hurt, if only because then she will know you still have a weak spot when it comes to the opinions of others. It doesn’t stop your eyebrows furrowing and your lips curling into a disappointed frown.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Cat rolled her eyes, “We know you’re not evil, it’s just the wealth and the tragic backstory. It makes for a bumpy ride, that’s what Leslie has to say about that.”

“Well your submissive would know considering she shorted the national power grid back in 2011 and robbed seven banks before you swooped down from the sky and saved her, I hasten to remind you,” You snap back.

“I know right?” Cat sighs. “What a woman.”

You can’t help but look at her woefully in love face with eye-rolling disgust.

“You should think about dinner though, her anger management therapist recommended cooking as an outlet and she has mastered lamb shanks like you wouldn’t believe. You’re missing out.”

“I think I’ll give Leslie’s angry lamb shanks a rain check, for tonight at least.”

“She’s just trying to be nice, really. She asks if I’ll invite you over for dinner all the time. She wants to help in her own unhelpful way.”

“Much like her dominant.”

“Careful not to burn your last few bridges, Lena,” Cat mutters and crosses her arms.

You scowl and wrinkle your nose, “Because you and Leslie know what’s best for me? A failed business mogul and a would-be crook? What a sturdy set of bridges that is.”

There was no need for that, the thought occurs to you far too late.

Cat snapped and lurched forward, “Maybe us trying has something to do with wanting to protect you and the people you’re taking down with you on your sinking ship!” She hissed and stared right at you, unafraid and unmoved. “Maybe we are the mistakes we’ve made, Lena. God knows what that makes you.”

She doesn’t mean it to punch as hard as it does, you know that but it hurts anyway. It hurts because you know who you are, or rather who you now have to be. You are the overworked and disinterested fiancé who always came home too late with work still on your mind. You are the fiddling glasses, scrunched brow, stuck in your home office, always too busy to pay attention to how her day was, flimsy, unavailable, kind of partner. You are the Dominant too busy to notice your submissive dwindling out like a shooting star trying too hard to be enough for you to pour wishes into.

You are your mistakes alright. You are the ghost of every moment that you could have looked up, listened better, and saved Sam before it was too late.

“Well I don’t need anyone’s help,” you whisper, “thanks but no thanks.” You force yourself steady and unclench your knuckles.

“You are impotent, Lena. You haven’t been to a single board meeting, nor a single shareholder meeting, in fact you haven’t been to the office in six months! I spoke to a few friends on the board at CatCo and they tell me they are not worried about L Corp competing for business in the slightest anymore. You’re losing your fire, Lena. It’s sad to watch.”

Here it is, the argument. The screaming match. The moment you want to rear up out of your chair and headbutt her. The moment you want to grab her and scream at the top of your lungs that you are trying your best. You are trying, trying, and trying. Maybe it’s not good enough for everybody. Maybe it’s not even good enough for you. But you’re trying. You’re trying to make the thought of working again stomachable. You’re trying to make the thought of occupying your mind with something other than Sam liveable. You would give anything to go back to being the unknown girl in the side office on the fifth floor who researched polymers and vector theories and boring science stuff before your father died, before you let Sam down. You would trade the years ahead of you for just a few more of the ones that have already passed, gladly. Give it all away in a heartbeat if it meant not having to have the empire beneath your lonely figure just yet. 

But, here you are. 

Because all the wishing in the world is not enough to make the fact that they’re all dead now go away.

“Lena?!” Cat’s voice pulled you out of the abyss with a guilty shrillness to it. You look at her, embarrassed and red faced. “Lena I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said those things, I took it too far. God,” Cat rubbed her face, “I’m sorry I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I’m sorry too.” The lie slips off of your tongue smoothly for the sake of avoiding a screaming match with the only real friend you have left. “I know Leslie just wants to help. I know you just want to help. There just isn’t much left to be helped, okay?”

Cat stares and holds her pause, mulling over something. You see the conflict within her, the fire in her small oval eyes and the regret that pulls her thin lips. 

“Let’s not get into that right now, okay?” Cat finally exhales under the breath, reluctantly. “I shouldn’t have called you impotent,” she mumbles, dragging out her apology like it is physically painful to concede.

Cat shook her head and sat back in the leather chair, “We’re going to be like this forever aren’t we?” The groan came and her forehead furrowed towards the ceiling with disappointment. “Just two old ladies screaming at each other from our bedrooms down the hallway, eating dinner in passive aggressive silence, tripping each other up on the last stair.”

“And where exactly is Leslie in all of this?” You rub your cheek and faintly smile at the idea of someone actually sticking around long enough to grow old with.

“Oh that girl is clearly going to die first. She’ll probably go out with a final bang riding on top of me when she’s eighty. You and me though? We’ll live until I’m 104 and you’re, well, slightly younger than 104…”

“Does it hurt you that much to admit you’re older?”

“Shut up,” Cat rolled her eyes. “We’ll live until I’m 104 and you’re… not 104.” She couldn’t bring herself to talk about the jump she had when it came to the age difference.

“Are we really making a suicide pact to die together on your 104th birthday, is this what we’re doing?” You give a weak grin.

“Sure, if staring at the shit stains in the back of my house gown and the broccoli permanently stuck on my chin sounds like the way you want to spend my twilight years we can talk about it closer to the time.” Cat shrugged.

“Leslie says you do those things already.” You barely get the words out before you have to dodge a stapler thrown at your head.

“I will fight you, I know Krav Maga,” Cat hisses, and you burst into a genuine sort of laughter that is hard to come by these days.

It seems there is a reason you keep Cat around after all.

A ruckus downstairs explodes not a moment later. 

Shouting.

Cursing.

Muffled voices.

Shrill cries.

“Get the fuck away from me!” A voice screams to the rafters.

Above all else, it’s the sound of your stepmother’s fine blue porcelain vase shattering on the oak floor that has you jumping out of the chair and storming towards the door with Cat in quick pursuit. Amid the confused shouting, that lone voice louder than the others. It’s the high-pitched cry of a young woman’s voice calling out for Cat over and over again, desperately. You briefly catch Cat’s panicked expression, it only fuels the fire that has you hauling down the grand staircase to see what is going on.

You set eyes on the girl cowering in the reception and stall on the landing like a clutch lifted too quickly.

“Where is Cat?!” The girl shouts and looks around frantically.

She is two blue eyes and barely a shade away from a snarl, and you are drawn to her immediately. An all consuming guilt swallows you whole for this terrified stranger stuck and startled in your presence. It keeps you blinking and stationary like a lame duck. Cat pushes past you and takes the set of stairs two at a time. You blink and come back to your senses, looking the girl over with a held breath. She is utterly terrified and backed into the corner, trembling even. You aren’t sure what it is she is afraid of, but then her eyes dart around the room and briefly meet your own and she looks at you as if you might hurt her. As if, she just might not survive you.

“C...C...Cat!” She shifts and looks at your friend, clinging to each letter so desperately the word won’t roll off her tongue. The girl rubs her throat nervously and trips over herself backing into the tightest bit of corner left—as far away from Layton as she could get, and the relief that it is in fact Layton she is terrified of and not you has you sitting with a peculiar kind of relief.

“What happened?” Cat worried.

“I was being good like you told me to and that man grabbed my things,” she exhaled with a shaky breath and threw a look that could kill in Layton’s direction.

“That’s just Mr Layton, Kara,” Cat tells her. “He is the only man here and he’s very very kind,” she says softly and the last few steps of the oak staircase are taken tentatively, careful to maintain the kind of decorum it takes to approach a startled deer. “It’s okay, it’s alright Kara, no one is going to make you stay here if you don’t want to do that.”

You are in awe of how Cat does it. How she makes herself so slight and unthreatening at the drop of a hat when less than a minute ago she was launching office supplies at your head. Then again that’s always been Cat, she knows how to take care of people and you envy that trait the most. It’s just not something you were born with. Not something you realised within yourself until it was too late.

As Cat continues to hush her with tiny reassurances, you turn your head and look at Layton. He is standing so still he looks like he might have died upright. His back is against the wall, head retreating into his neck like a nervous turtle. His eyes remain bulging and still, never losing sight of the alien girl for a moment. His hands wind tighter around your afternoon newspaper until the only sound is thin paper crinkling in his fingers. You sigh and rub your forehead, aware that this was a terrible idea.

“You said,” Kara mumbled at Cat and seemed to find herself all the more stuck. “You said no men would be here,” she finally gets the words out and wrings her hands nervously, flitting her big blue eyes back at a tightly postured Layton.

Mrs P seemingly appeared from thin air with a cold glass of water, trotting into the unfolding chaos from the kitchen. “Oh Love, he’s old, he’ll probably die soon if dat helps at all?” She said to the girl and gave you a reassuring look as she passed. 

It doesn’t do the trick. You are not reassured that this was the right decision in the slightest. But you feel a bit calmer knowing she is here now. Mrs P always seemed to know what to say, or rather, what to do to calm a situation.

Good old Mrs P, she was a short plump woman with a heavy Irish accent and fine silver hair always pulled into a bun. She had permanently pink cheeks that always made her look like she had just been cooking something but more often than not it was just her Irish exasperation coming to a boil. Today, like most days, she was dressed in a floral waist apron over a brown conservative-length dress with her small cross sitting just over the neckline, dressed as if she were expecting God and the Catholic Church to drop by for tea any moment. Confidently, Mrs P continued walking towards the alien in the hallway and came to a rest practically underneath her nose with a glass of water offered up towards her expectantly. 

You watch the girl pause, exhaling a shaky breath, unwinding into a tentative state of not fearing for her life. Slowly, she accepted the water with shaking hands and began to drink thirstily. You suddenly realise you’re not holding your own breath anymore.

“I’m sorry I got scared,” the girl mumbled with embarrassment and gave the glass back to Mrs P. “I...I didn’t mean to cause trouble, I’m sorry.”

You want to tell her not to apologise. You want to tell her that it’s okay. You want to comfort her with little tender reassurances like everybody else in the room, but you don’t. You’re not sure why. Instead you just stay exactly where you are on the staircase balcony, your hands in your pockets and your eyes blinking rapidly. Determined to be an uninvolved onlooker in your own home.

Mrs P looked over at her husband and tisked disapprovingly. “Startlin’ the poor girl like dat!” She chided, “I tell you sometin Mister Layton you open dat front door like a bloody bull in a china shop! Anyone would tink we keep you prisoner in here!” She wiped her palms on the floral apron around her waist and turned back to Kara with a reassuring plump hand resting on her forearm, utterly unconcerned with how strong or dangerous this girl was supposed to be. “Now young lady, if Mister Layton gives you another shock like dat again ya have me full permission to use your unholy aberrations upon him. But only if ye promise not to be smashing the place to smithereens?” She warmly smiled.

“Unholy aberrations is a little strong, Dorothy,” Cat gave a disapproving look and folded her arms.

“Catrin’ if I av told you once I av told you a thousand times, call me Mrs P.” Mrs P cocked a look to kill in Cat’s direction before turning back to the frightened little alien, all cheery smiles and twinkling brown eyes as if butter wouldn’t melt. She lowered her voice and softened herself, “Now young lady, you’re just fine here, I won’t let any harm come to you. It’s Kara, isn’t it?”

“Al...alright, and yes.” She nodded awkwardly.

“You’re a fine built woman Kara, just look at the muscles on ye,” Mrs P said in surprise and squeezed Kara’s forearm, then looked up at you with a grin. “Miss Lena she will make for fine help taking the bins out on a Thursday morning!” Mrs P said gleefully.

“Well I’m sure we can give her a little time to settle before she gets to work.” You force a tight small smile. 

Kara doesn’t so much as look up at you.

“Right ye are Miss Lena, Mister Layton won’t mind to tend the bins until then.” Mrs P nodded in agreement, her reassuring hand never leaving Kara’s arm for a moment.

“The what now?” Kara whispered quietly to Cat, dazed and confused.

“We’re just talking about the garbage, that’s all,” you speak up awkwardly. “You’ll get used to the accent after a while.” You offer a curt polite smile.

Again, she doesn’t so much as look at you. 

It becomes a quietly infuriating affair.

“Ah yes, about that love!” Mrs P interjects and takes Kara by the arm. Together they start the slow walk towards the downstairs sleeping quarters. It’s tentative at first, a step here, a step there, never faster than the girl wants to move—which isn’t much at all. “I remember what it’s like ta be new here, I came here when I was a young girl too. You will find your bearings, don’t worry about that right now. We’ll get ye a strong cup of tea and a good meal in you and before ye know it you’ll be right at home.”

“You’re from another planet too?” Kara spoke up quietly and found her pace a little easier.

“Close. Derry, Northern Ireland.” They walked arm in arm, slowly.

You finally make yourself unstuck and walk down the stairs, following behind Cat who followed behind the small procession making tentative progress towards the downstairs sleeping quarters. 

Eventually as you passed through the hallway, Layton unpeeled himself from the wall and coughed, “My mother was from another planet? Perhaps you could tell us all about your customs over dinner?” He offered the olive branch now things had seemed to calm down.

Mrs P snapped around quick as lightning from the grand doorway, “What did I tell you about frightening the poor girl! Making ye small talk tae her! Wi your best shirt half untucked no less! Nae wonder she’s frightened haff tae death! Shame of my life ye are!” She suddenly looked at you and Cat with a glaring shake of her head, “Will you find sometin for Mister Layton to busy himself with Catrin? 11am isn’t too early for you to start on the gin is it?”

“Yes Dorothy, it is.” Cat soured.

Well, that’s not normally the case.” Mrs P craned a knowing look in your direction. “Anyway,” she patted Kara’s arm, “I’ve made a room up right next door to me own. If you don’t like it I’ll have Mister Layton move your things to the guest house down in the garden. You’ll have lots of space down there, no one to bother you at all. In fact,” Mrs P stopped and scratched her head, “Why the feck didn’t I think to make you a room there instead?” She exasperated with a furrowed brow.

Kara became visibly smaller. “You...You don’t have to send me to another house. I can learn to be good?” Her voice becomes so quiet and unsure, “Promise. I’ll be a good girl. I don’t want to be sent away again, please,” she fumbles.

“Is that what got the fright in you?” Mrs P suddenly stopped dead in her sensible brown heels with a look of sheer concern. “You thought we’d send ye away?”

Kara hung her head and stayed silent. There’s something about that little act that leaves you brooding.

“Well now young lady?” Mrs P prodded further.

“I get sent away a lot,” Kara whispered back. “I think it’s because I’m not good.”

“Now you listen to me,” you blurt sternly from nowhere, and it has her skittery blue eyes snapping round to look for the source of that voice. For a split second you’re filled with regret, convinced that you will send her spiralling once again. When she finds you, when her stare lands upon your own, it isn’t terror in her eyes but a sort of calm obedience. It reminds you of something you’ve long since forgotten.

Authority.

Control.

Power.

“You’re in my home,” you continue sternly, “I make the rules here. I decide who stays and goes and I see no reason why you cannot work hard and make a very comfortable life for yourself here at Old Luthor. When you’re ready to go on your way we’ll give you a good reference and see to it that you are compensated well, but for now you are here to stay regardless of whether you’re a good girl or not. Am I understood?”

She swallows and stays quiet for a moment, that veil of obedience never losing her stare. “Yes ma’am,” she says after a moment, nodding.

“Good,” You reply. “I don’t want to so much as hear of another outburst, especially with Layton. If I so much as here that you have caused trouble for him you will have me to answer to. Am I understood, Kara?”

She hesitates this time, and her eyes move to him curiously, her nostrils flaring, her teeth sitting on the edge of themselves with a learned fear that you are not sure how she has came to possess. You don’t let her see your curiosity, the need to unravel the mystery of her sits beneath your stomach, safe and sound. Instead you remain stoic and stern, impenetrable even.

“I’m sorry,” Kara mumbled at Layton and didn’t quite look him in the eyes.

Layton was quick to reassure her, “I’ve dealt with far scarier ladies than you Miss Kara, I will survive.” He gave a warm chuckle.

Mrs P looked on disapprovingly at the insinuation, “Careful with yourself Mister Layton.”

“Sorry dear,” he smiled, earning a brief satisfied nod of her head.

“Well, I’m glad to see we’re all on the same page.” You scratch the back of your neck, “Cat do you want to stay for—”

You smell a familiar perfume and it stalls you. It’s floral and light to your nose, and it has been so long since you caught a long desperate huff of it but that fact is not enough to tear the old familiar smell out of a brief lifetime’s worth of memories. It lingers, sitting just above your conscious thoughts, it has you blinking and suddenly offkeel.

“What were you saying?” Cat prompted, eyebrow pushed up.

You go to speak, you purse your lips, but you blink and find yourself entirely stuck and unable to form words. That soft sweet perfume is practically sitting on the back of your tongue, swirling in your throat, trumpeting through your lungs. You see a flash of light brown hair move in front of you, and at first you think it might be Kara. It said in that file you briefly perused that among her many gifts was the power of speed, but when you look to Mrs P, Kara is still right there beside her, unmoved.

“Lena?” Cat whispers and touches your wrist.

You don’t look at her. You can’t look at her. You’re too focused on Kara, because all of that raw intrigue in her eyes has amplified into a curious sort of pity. You can see it already. She thinks you’re a broken and haphazardly put back together woman too. Between that and the sudden sea-sickness, the sudden uncertainty of where you are or what’s happening, the sudden feeling of impending doom, you feel like you cannot breathe right. The air is trumpeting out of your mouth and you’re barely getting enough in with each inhale. Kara is watching you like you’re a car crash in motion.

“Do you need to go upstairs?” Cat tries.

Hot tiny breaths linger on the inside of your neck as if a nose is nuzzling into the back of your pink ear from over your shoulder, as if two warm lips are craning into your throat and barely grazing over the skin. You clench your eyes and try to make it go away but it feels so real. It’s the hot sharp sting in your palms that has you suddenly aware of your clenching fists. You exhale a shaky breath and try to center yourself.

“She’s an interesting one, isn’t she?” Sam hums.

“Go away,” you grunt beneath your breath and keep your eyes clenched.

You feel two palms slip around your stomach, as if she is holding you from behind, as if she stopping you from sinking to your sore knees. You could tell her hands among a thousand others. You know the rhythm of her fingers, the staccato of their touch, the way those palms slip fondly over your stomach until they find a nook beneath your ribcage to settle into. Eventually, slowly, you think the nightmare might be starting to fade.

Forearms tighten around your sides as if she is pulling you into a deep embrace from behind. It’s enough to make you shudder and growl.

“Good grief she’s going mad again Mister Layton!” Mrs P exclaims shrilly, “Go get her a cup of tea! Quickly man!”

“Go away Sam,” you mumble again, cradling your splitting headache with two palms. “You need to go now,” you try to say it softly, almost.

The is a disappointed sigh against the back of your ear, almost a silent concession. The warm palms retreat, the arms release you, and the hot breath cools into nothing.

It’s over, you tell yourself.

It’s not real, you make it stick.

This is just your brain coping with the incomprehensibility of living without her.

You open your eyes and crane your head towards the ceiling, relieved. The back of your neck is rubbed with one hand while the other unfastens the top button of your white shirt. It’s suddenly stiflingly warm. The air becomes sticky and thick like tar. Jesus, you miss her so much. You miss her so fucking much. Sometimes, occasionally, you find yourself happy in the absent-minded moments of the day in the deepest most silent part of your thoughts where the light of her life doesn’t reach.

But Sam lived to impress you.

Apparently she does it in death too.

“Sorry,” you mumble to the three people staring at you. “I’m alright.”

“No, you’re not Lena.” Cat shifts a concerned look at you.

“I don’t want to rush you out of the door but perhaps you should go. I need to lie down, that’s all. A little sleep and I’ll be fine,” you reassure poorly.

Cat hesitates and shifts her look towards everyone else. “Keep an eye on the both of them, Mrs P.”

“That I will Catrin.”

“Kara, I’ll come by for lunch next week to see how you like it here, okay?”

“Okay Cat,” Kara replies tentatively.

Shit.

You suddenly remember Kara.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Kara saw all of it.

“Kara I’m sorry about just now,” you offer her an apologetic look, “I have terrible migraines sometimes. Why don’t you go with Mrs P and get yourself comfortable?”

Internally, you are pleading, dying, begging, absolutely clenching your hands in prayer that they will just do it and not bother asking questions. On the outside you make yourself calm and ordered as if nothing has happened.

 “Go on now,” you whisper softly at them with a forced smile.

Mrs P licks her lips, “Shall I have Mister Layton bring your tea up to the study, Miss Lena?”

“Please, thank you.”

“Come on dear,” Mrs P offers Kara a reassuring smile. “I’ll show you the house. Perhaps in the week we can go to town and find some clothes and things for you to decorate your room with? You haven’t came with much have you? I’m sure Miss Lena wouldn’t mind that…”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” you smile warmly. “If you ladies will excuse me I’m going to go and lie down for a while, I have a little headache.”

You excuse yourself and feel them watch you walk away. It takes you three flights of stairs, two hallways, and three closed doors until you’re certain no one is watching. In the deepest corner of your closet, that’s where you’re safe, that’s where it’s quiet, that’s where you can just sit and exist, where you can curl up and weep violent tears.

“So that’s what you’re calling me now? A migraine?” Sam says, unimpressed.

You’re too tired to do this, to tell her to go away again. She is a woman out of time. A woman bleeding through time. A collection of badly put together memories that could never be enough to make a half-believable substitute. Instead you just curl up tighter and let the tears slip down your cheeks until the faint taste of them sit in drips on the roof of your plump lips.

She will leave eventually.

She always does.

“You didn’t mean it when you told me to go away. There was a bit of you that hoped I wouldn’t.” Sam crouched and sighed, slipping a warm hand over your raven hair.

“There’s always a bit of me that hopes you won’t go,” you croak tiredly.

Sam smiled at that and bit her lip, “The girl, you want to be the one to save her?”

You fidget and clench your eyes again.

She will leave eventually.

She always does.

“I don’t like it when you’re quiet,” Sam added in afterthought.

“You’re incapable of liking anything, you’re not real.”

“I’m real enough that you’re hiding from me in a closet.”

“Touché.”

“You’re mad with me? That’s unusual?”

“You promised you wouldn’t come back.”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell you I was real,” Sam quipped immediately.

“Cheat.”

“Schizophrenic.”

You roll your eyes and rest your chin on your forearm, offended and simultaneously aware that you are talking to yourself.

“The girl excites you,” Sam whispers and smiles weakly. “Maybe it’s time to go back to the doctor, don’t you think?”

You rub your head, that idea won’t work. “So he can tell me I have a post-traumatic stress disorder again?”

“So you can get rid of me for good,” Sam tells you bluntly.

“Nah,” you hold your breath for a moment. “Killing you once was enough.”

“You didn’t—”

“Shut up,” you snipe, and you _really_ mean it this time.

“Alright Lena.” Sam ruefully and came undone from your raven hair, “Love you, mean it.”

 

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